Galveston shelters see animals so weird some don't even belong there

By Craig Hlavaty |
June 14, 2013

It's a busy season for animal shelters and humane societies, who are seeing an increased amount of animals being surrendered to their facilities.

This week, Houston's own BARC reported a dramatic increase in pets being brought to their location, with their capacities being tested.

BARC spokesman Christopher Newport said he notices an increase in drop-offs when it gets hotter outside, and Houston's getting its first great heatwave right now.

But local humane societies aren't just seeing cats and dogs coming through their doors. Some are seeing less-conventional pets joining their ranks.

"We've seen a lot of pocket pets lately," says Caroline Dorsett-Pate of the Galveston Humane Society.

Pocket pets are usually termed as gerbils, hamsters, mice, rats, and guinea pigs. The kind of pets that you can, well, keep in your pocket.

Dorsett-Pate thinks a lot of people acquire these tiny creatures without thinking of the upkeep involved, however minimal.

These end up getting adopted quickly as "impulse adoptions" when people who come by to look at puppies, end up leaving with a hamster instead.

In Galveston, they also see people attempting to turn in injured pelicans.

"People should not pick up hurt pelicans. They should call the proper authorities," Dorsett-Pate notes. Same goes for marine life, like sea turtles.

In fact, there has been an onslaught of box turtles at the Galveston outpost, either from people who can no longer care for them as pets, or those that are rescued from certain death on a busy street. Those animals get rehabbed if needed and released back into the area they were first found, or another suitable habitat.

"We've had reports of iguanas running loose on the island," says Dorsett-Pate. In some cases these are pets who have escaped a backyard and made a run for it. Ball pythons aren't strangers to the humane society either.

The Houston Humane Society is also getting its share of oddities.

"It seems like we get bunnies in the spring," said Monica Schmidt from the HSS. These are more than likely children's Easter gifts gone awry. Or nature taking its course.

The most exotic thing at the HSS that Schmidt can remember? A wallaby.

A woman bought a male wallaby at a flea market. When local animal control discovered it, he was removed from the home and came to the HSS.

"He lived here for a while on our land, and we finally found a wildlife preserve that had other wallabies for him to hang out with," says Schmidt.